Margaret Avison has always been a relatively unknown poet, except among readers and critics of Canadian verse. Since 1966, critical essays on her work have increased, but the verbal and imaginative complexities of her poems have not won over many casual readers. Avison is a private person, uninterested in using the media to publicize her work. Her books are hard to find; the first two volumes are out of print, and the last was published by a very small press. Her stature as a Canadian poet, to judge from the distribution of her poems today, is low; but those readers who have taken the trouble to study her work acknowledge the scope of her intelligence, the uniqueness of her imagination, and a virtuosity in the use of language perhaps unparalleled among contemporary Canadian poets.

Avison, the child of Harold Wilson and Mabel Kirkland Avison, was born in Galt, Ontario...